The Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (NOCCI) has expressed its strong opposition to a proposed P100 and P120.40 across-the-board wage increase for Central Visayas.
In a position paper, the NOCCI outlined their reasons in opposing the proposed wage increases by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines and the Alliance of Progress Labor.
They cited power costs, which increased twice this year and will yet a third time in October.
They also cited high taxation, expensive logistics and stiff regulations. The proposed increase of P100/day, which would translate to P2,600 a month and the P120.40/day increase would mean P3,200 per month, “would aggravate their present financial situation and might force them to retrench their workforce or worse, stop operations.”
They also noted the 56 percent drop in the price of sugar this year, which is bad for the agricultural sector. Negros Oriental, they said, is mostly an agricultural economy.
The business sector acknowledged that while the labor sector also suffers from the unstable commodity prices brought about by the extraordinary increase in the prices of petroleum products and other commodities, the business sector is equally affected.
“NOCCI’s position has always been for the government to focus its efforts on job creation and productivity for the agri-marine sector rather than wage hikes especially that Negros Oriental is primarily an agricultural province,” the business group said.
The position paper stated that any across-the-board wage increase should be pegged with the prevailing inflation rate or Consumer Price Index (CPI) of Negros Oriental.